Free The Wells Bequest by Polly Shulman

wouldn’t completely surprise me.
    â€œAn angel
investor.
She funds start-up companies in England. Or maybe I’ll start a think tank. I like to be in charge. I’m very bossy.”
    I laughed. “You think?”
    â€œAdmit it!” she ordered.
    â€œOkay, okay, I admit it! Don’t fire me!”
    â€œI won’t, as long as you always do exactly what I say.”
    â€œYes, boss. I know—you’re the next Thomas Edison. You’ll found a new Menlo Park.”
    She shook her head. “Didn’t Edison invent the lightbulb and the phonograph? I’m not really an inventor myself.”
    â€œActually, there already was a lightbulb—Edison just improved it. His big thing was hiring other inventors and telling them what to do—like Tesla.”
    â€œOh, okay. I’ll start an idea incubator. What about you—what do you want to do?”
    â€œI don’t know. Everybody in my family is a scientist, but I don’t think I have the patience and discipline for it, and I don’t have the grades, either. I’m much better at coming up with crazy, out-there ideas.”
    â€œThat’s perfect,” said Jaya. “You can come work for me in my idea incubator.”
    â€œOkay. What ideas are we incubating?”
    She considered. “I’ll hire the best engineer in the country to come up with a way to stop earbud wires from tying themselves in knots. That would be a real service to humanity.”
    â€œOh, that’s easy,” I said. “Make them wireless.”
    â€œOkay. Then I’ll hire the best engineer in the country to find lost wireless earbuds.”
    â€œI see your point,” I said.
    â€œYou know what else I’d like? A hands-free umbrella. It’s pretty much impossible to hold an umbrella and open a door at the same time without dropping your cell phone. Sticking the umbrella under your chin just dumps water down your shoulder.”
    â€œI’ve seen umbrella hats,” I said. “Like a sunshade, only bigger.”
    She shook her head. “No good. You’d poke out people’s eyes. Everybody would have to wear goggles. And goggles would get all steamed up in the rain. No, the solution has to involve some kind of force field.”
    â€œI wonder if you could repel the raindrops ultrasonically?” I mused, tugging at my hair. “Or break them up before they hit you.”
    â€œNow you’re thinking,” she said.
    Something banged in the pneumatic pipes. With a scudding thump, a pneum fell into the basket.
    Jaya jumped up. “Here, want to run your first slip?” She pulled it out of the pneum and handed it to me.
    I unfolded it and read, “
V T 746.12 S53. Niddy noddy. Oak. Massachusetts, 1780s
. What the quark is a niddy noddy?”
    Jaya laughed. “It’s a handheld spinner’s weasel. Don’t you even know
that
?”
    â€œNow I do,” I said. “What’s a spinner’s weasel? And don’t say an un-handheld niddy noddy.”
    â€œOkay, I won’t. Go fetch! The 740s are that way.” Jaya pointed to the left. She got a book out of her backpack and started to read.
    I walked past rows of closed cabinets and open shelves, scanning the numbers on the ends.
    The niddy noddy turned out to be a wooden stick the length of my forearm, with two shorter sticks attached at the ends at right angles. The wood was smooth and dark, as if generations of hands had worn it down.
    â€œFound it?” asked Jaya when I got back.
    â€œI think so. But I still don’t know what it is.”
    â€œI’ll show you.” She took it and waved it around in front of her.
    â€œIt’s for rowing boats?” I asked.
    â€œNo, silly, it’s for winding yarn.”
    â€œOh! Obviously,” I said. “Why is someone borrowing it?”
    â€œTo wind yarn, I would think,” said Jaya, handing it back. “Initial the call slip and